Radio Papesse

Mikhail Karikis lives and works in London, UK.

For A Song for Larderello: Ouverture he embarked on a sound-journey which took him to the steaming earth of Valle del Diavolo in Tuscany, to the world’s first geothermal power plant in the local village of Larderello, and the near-abandoned workers’ villages surrounding it.
First Karikis was titillated by the popular legend which claims that Dante's hellish landscape was inspired by the same site, and intrigued by the silence of the film adaptation of Dante’s epic poem in the first Italian feature-length movie (L'Inferno, 1911). Alongside the experimental use of his voice, Karikis creates a multi-layered sound work, which reflects on the natural, industrial, social and legendary past of the site.
He interweaves the natural noises of geothermal activity with the industrial drones of the pipes transporting the high-pressure steam; and combines narrations by experts from the area with reminiscences by people who visited the site as school-children and now recall its ghostly sounds.

With A Song for Larderello: Ouverture Mikhail Karikis has deftly translated, in imaginative and poetic terms, the complexity of the territory and history of Larderello, the magic and legends born around a striking natural phenomenon, the symbiotic relationship between man, nature and machine, and its subsequent dissolution. Thanks to his deep technical knowledge of sound material and ability to model it, as well as to a memorable rhythmic section, Mikhail Karikis transports us into a powerful narrative machine. A Song for Larderello: Ouverture ends with a wish: "imagine something different". His journey to Larderello has just begun. [Radio Papesse]

A song for Larderello: Ouverture is a work by Mikhail Karikis for Nuovi Paesaggi, a project by Radio Papesse and Villa Romana; it is produced by Radio Papesse and curated by Lucia Farinati.

A special thank to the Municipality of Pomarance, to Billy Cerri and Angela Ameli; to Maddalena Rossi with the Michelucci Foundation, Corrado Marcetti and Nadia Musumeci, Orano Pippucci, Alessandra Casini of the Parco delle Colline Metallifere, Enel Green Power with Massimiliano Santulli e Alberto Bruni. Many thanks to Lucia Fedi and Mauro and Michela Agazzi.